Kitchen Reveal

Before with laminate countertops

After:

Lighting is always tricky with a cellphone so the colors aren't 100% representative. The granite is Azul Platino which is grey/black/white. Dark gray subway glass backsplash. The countertops and backsplash coordinate far better in person than the pictures show. Pottery Barn Vintage Glass pendants. Knobs and handles from Target of all places! Paint is Sherwin Williams Alpaca. I think that covers it. 

Here it is in natural light. 

I was going to do a kitchen reveal BUT...

Hi all! 

It's been awhile. We have been slowly getting the house together. It's FINALLY starting to feel like our house. Love it! 

So I wanted to do a big kitchen reveal for you all. We installed the glass tile backsplash, installed knobs and pulls, and had the kitchen granite installed. This morning Jim decided to hang the pendant lights. First one went up so beautifully. I was so excited cause they really tie the kitchen together. Jim removes the cap for the second pendant and....

THERE ARE NO ELECTRICAL WIRES! 

What?!? 

WHERE ARE MY WIRES? 

So I called (can I say now I love living here cause I can look out my window to see where he is. LOL!) the PM. He said he is going to send the electrician over tomorrow to see what happened. I truly hope they don't have to cut into the ceiling. 

The reveal will be tomorrow! I promise!

How are all of your homes coming along?!? 

  

We are still here!

We closed exactly a week ago. It's been super hectic. Here's a run down:

-painted the entire first floor.

- removed laminate countertops from kitchen & bathrooms to have the granite installed.

- started on the glass subway tile backsplash.

-this particular minute we are installing knobs on the cabinets. If you aren't handy I recommend you pay Ryan to do it or find a local handyman to. The cabinets are super hard to open. It's insane. 

Here's a tease of our custom tables. They were delivered Saturday and we are just in love. We got them from Rustic Elements Furniture in Joliet, IL. 

Morning room.

Love this round pedestal in the Dining Room. I promise to take better pics soon. 

If you can't find a table call Scott. They deliver to the U.S. and he can make anything your little heart desires! 

So far we have only one problem with the house. We have an insane squeak/grinding noise when you step in the family room. It's horrific and sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I'm trying to deal with it until the 30 day but I don't know how long I can do it! Haha. Other than that the work is solid. I don't have any complaints. Once we finish all of our personalization I will need a vacation though... 

I promise to post more pics within the week!!

Paint/trim color pictures.

A fellow blogger asked for pictures of the standard paint. Here they are!

Hope that helps! Back to the move! 

Moving kicks your butt!

Laying in bed after another very hectic day. No pictures or anything yet. We'd like to not have the house look like a bomb went off in it. Lol. 

Few updates:

-Cabinets are fixed. Fingers crossed that when granite slab gets here all is well. 

-Window well fixed. These 2 poor guys were out in 36 degree wet weather hand digging all around the egress well of the basement. They get props for busting their butts. 

-Shower is fixed, zero leaks. 

-Got our Fridge and washer/dryer delivered. The Fridge is a beast and barely fit in through the house!

-Painting has begun. We're using a guy Bridget's family has used for 15 years. Old school simple guy that does great work. I almost feel bad with how little he charges for the quality of work done. 

Ok, that's a quick nutshell recap. Time for bed!

Closed!!!!

30 minutes to sign papers then got this! Moving as we speak. Not to the house yet. 

Closed!

We are homeowners! We will update later. Time to move...

Some shoutouts to NVR and our PM

Have to give kudos to NVR. I really expected this to be the worst part of the process from others blogs. I was prepared to use anyone but NVR. But in actuality, this was super smooth. I know this all has to do with the luck of the draw with who you get, but our Loan Officers were excellent. They kept great contact, I felt like they worked in my best interest and were very transparent. No hidden costs and beat the other mortgage company I was comparing. Never any pressure and zero lost paperwork. 

When it comes to mortgages, I really believe you need to keep yourself in the driver's seat. If they need paperwork, get it to them without delay. Have your records in order and know your finances. I loved the fact that almost everything I needed to do could be either emailed or scanned. No need for faxing, mailing or going into the office. So they get a "10". 

I do have to say our PM did a great job overall. In particular these last several days. The guy was literally on his hands and knees doing touch ups and trying to make things right. He got crews on scene right away to correct issues and certainly stayed late last night. 

So the 2 standouts from our experience was NVR and the PM. 

Inspection and Orientation done

This won't be a long winded post because I am damn tired. Orientation went from 10-1. Our inspection from about 1-3. Then from 3-4:30 worked with our PM to resolve issues. 

To begin with, we really believe our house is beautiful. In brief I would say this is how I would rate the different facets of the house on a scale of 1-10. 

Layout: 10

Trim work: 9

Brick Masons for front: 9

Hardwood Installer: 10

Tile setter: 10

Drywallers: 7

Siding installers: 6

Painters: ceilings 10 but walls 7

Carpet: 9

I still feel like the eye for the smaller details was lacking in some spots, such as the shutters. 

Home Orientation: Nothing earth shattering here. Basically went over the function and operation of the house. 

Independent Inspector. Again, I can't repeat enough, GET ONE! We are very detail driven people with a lot of house knowledge, but there is simply too much stuff going on in your own life to catch every single thing and know every code. Overall, 98% of the house was great, but there were issues. This is what the Inspector found and the resolution. 

1. Run the shower for a long time. A leak was discovered from where the glass meets the top of the tile. Ryan must not have done this. PM is having this fixed tomorrow. 

2. I didn't take a picture but my Inspector did. The window well in the basement, you know, the metal "U" with the egress ladder. One side was pulling out of the foundation. The PM will have to have it dug out around and rebolted with extra bolts. This will get fixed tomorrow.

3. Some loose pieces of siding. The PM had a crew take care of this right away. 

4. General nicks and scratches in the floor. The PM touched up. I really wish they would leave the floors covered until the end. This appears to be damage caused by other trades. Much like a new car, let ME be the one to put the first scratches or dings into it. I know hardwood will show wear, but that's for our family to do. Overall it looks great, but not the point. 

5. Now the one that ticks us off there is a cabinet to the right of the stove completely out of whack. It's two base cabinets side by side. The side closest to the wall ran up to a bad stud, and instead of correcting this, the 2nd cabinet  "hinged" out about 3/4 of an inch. So basically first cabinet is fine, 2nd is flaired out. 

Here's the reveal by the stove

Here's the reveal by the wall, see the issue?

Here's top down, don't see the drawer

The bad side, see the drawer. 

So we already had our 3rd party granite measured and ready to go into production. Here's about the only sore part I have had with the PM, turns out he knew this was done! He knew the cabinet was kicking out, but then after he knew we had the granite measured, he said he didn't want to say anything about it because he thought that might screw up the granite. Now that's BS. You tell the homeowner there's an issue and you let me decide how to proceed with my outside contractor. There's more to the story but I'm not going to fully go into it. I called the granite company, told them the situation, and from the measurements he did, he said it will be fine to have this cabinet be corrected without a remeasure. A problem should never be kept from the homeowner. Let the homeowner decide how to proceed. 

6. Dishwasher has a leaking gasket that Ryan didn't catch. A GE tech is coming out Tuesday. 

7. One window in the morning room would not properly latch. This will be corrected in the next week. The window functions, but is not acceptable. 

Now to the GOOD stuff. We really do love it. It feels very much like home already. So here's a variety of pictures. 

Upstairs hall bath

Forgot to take anymore of the master bath! Lol. Also we are getting rid of the ugly brown register covers pronto. 

Home Orientation tomorrow

Sadly have no new pictures to post since we're locked out. But tomorrow is the New Home Orientation. I hope this isn't a waste of our time. I know how a dishwasher and faucets work. Ha. I hope we go over each and every piece of the house and that any concerns and nitpicks we have are heard and addressed. Then later in the day we have our independent Inspector coming out, and that should take around 3 hours. Then during this time we are also having a fencing contractor coming out to give us a firm estimate. We'd love to get our fence in before winter gets going. So it will be a busy day, and will be the most amount of time we've spent in the house. I'm sure this will make it feel more "real". Right now I have 2 opposing sides going on:

1. Wants to clinically look at the house in a detached way and observe anything I think is an issue or needs to be corrected. 

2. Is just so happy to have this be real and almost be done that I'm overcome with joy and want to just lay on the carpet. 

It would probably be in our best interest to be in #1 as much as possible since we have the rest of our lives living here to then feel like #2. Ha. I want to catch any issues now so they don't become huge annoyances later. 

One week from close!

Well we are one week away and it's not without some concern. So far the interior is looking good, but we have some serious issues with exterior quality. They pitched the fact that they used Hardi siding, yet it looks like they hire incompetent installers. We're already in contact with the Ryan bigwigs and we are getting a Hardie Rep out to the house. My best guess is they attempted touch up painting when too cold. First off, with a proper install there shouldn't be any face nails! This disaster goes about 10 rows up then stopped. By then I'm guessing they realized this looked like crap. Now for the shutters, you ever hear of a level? Also the top trim piece is crooked. There's a few more issues we have spotted. I'll keep you posted on how they are fixed.